Inference : Teaching Students to Develop Hypotheses, Evaluate Evidence, and Draw Logical Conclusions (a Strategic Teacher PLC Guide)

You're holding an innovative professional development tool called a Strategic Teacher PLC Guide. Designed in partnership with more than 75 schools, Strategic Teacher PLC Guides make the important work of bringing high-impact, research-based instructional practices into every classroom easier than ever before. Each guide serves as a complete professional development resource for a team of teachers (or professional learning community) to learn, plan, and implement the strategy in their classrooms. This Strategic Teacher PLC Guide focuses on inference, or the ability to examine information, generate hypotheses, and draw conclusions that are not explicitly stated. Making inferences is a crucial foundational process that underlies higher-order thinking and 21st century skills. This PLC Guide walks readers through four research-based, classroom-tested strategies that help develop students' inferential thinking skills: * Inductive Learning helps students draw inferences by grouping data, labeling the data groups with descriptive titles, and using the groups to generate and test hypotheses. * Mystery presents students with a puzzling question or situation and has students examine clues that help them explain the mystery. * Main Idea teaches students how to use inferential thinking to construct main ideas that are not explicitly stated. * Investigation directs students to use various problem-solving approaches that require inference.